


lake of memories

by followingthesky



Category: Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: M/M, Tumblr Prompt, a little bit of magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 05:33:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11844972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/followingthesky/pseuds/followingthesky
Summary: The spirit nods, lips stretching into the faintest of smiles, as if he is in on the joke. He looks out into the lake, and Woojin sees the mist reflected in his eyes."The lake of memories only appears to those who seek it," he replies fondly. "Those who wish to be rid of a memory write it on one of the many pebbles, throw it in and forget. Those who wish to be wise would search for stones to read, but the memory is then theirs to keep."He then turns to Woojin, cloak billowing in his wake. "So tell me," he asks, gesturing to the older with an ease of formality beyond his years. "Which may you be?"





	lake of memories

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! I've really been writing to write something else for this ship for over a month now but I don't know why inspiration is just so hard to come for me (oh maybe if you guys weren't sinking your own ship), but our fandom is really in a tight spot rn and I was like 'even if its crappy just DO SOMETHING' so I did! ._.
> 
> Also being the loyal jinseob shipper from the era of the dinosaurs, I will never stop loving this ship and I will DROWN WITH IT YOU HEAR ME so there.
> 
> Even though it's rushed and far far faaarrr from perfect, I hope you enjoy this!
> 
> Also, I got this prompt from tumblr! So thank you tumblr <3 (@followingthesky on tumblr and @following_skye on twitter if y'alls ever wanna chat or fangirl/fanboy or give prompts or whatever! :) )

Woojin is three when his father leaves them. A strange age, an age when the senses are too keen, the mind too young to remember nuances, yet too old to forget his presence. All he remembers is a warm glow, large hands and deep laughter, and he clings to these memories with all his might when he sleeps at night, naught but a little flicker in the hearth that is home.

 

He is four when a kind, tear-stained face finally ingrains itself in his memory,  clear dark eyes looking down upon him lovingly as the gentle hand of a mother strokes his cheek. It is the age of first steps, when the world is larger than life, towering and scary, and one hand clings at his mother's firm grip while the other flails around for balance.

 

He is five when his mother sends him to a relative's house for a weekend, kissing the top of his head before donning her coat and scarf and stepping out the door into the cold February winter. His aunt waves to her as she leaves, and Woojin turns to her, asking where she's off to.

"She is going to forget," is her only answer, and Woojin nods, despite not quite understanding.

 

 

He does not remember how old he is when he discovers that in their village, forgetting is a way of life.

 

Though not in the whimsical, carefree way it may sound, merely relinquishing thoughts for periods at a time only to grasp feebly at them later. This tradition runs far deeper than that of simple forgetfulness - encompassing an entire culture in its humble effect, widening smiles and lightening hearts. And it is by no means a distasteful tradition at all. 

It is by no means a distasteful tradition, but that does not precede the fact that as the years pass, he realises that his mother's eyes do not twinkle like he remembers, her smile happy but often slightly confused, her touch gentle yet unknowingly hesitant, fussy and up in his space yet painfully distant all at the same time. As the years pass, Woojin realises that in healing her, the lake had also taken a part of her away from him.

 

 

The lake of memories is spoken of in passing, though always with reverence, and Woojin grows up listening to descriptions of lush canopies parting, rays of sunshine gliding across still clear water. Villagers whisper of tranquility, of sorrow dissipating with the ripples of a stone's throw, and the inner peace that accompanies them as they leave. In his mind's eye, he can envision it; can almost feel the crispness of the air, can almost see the stones littering the lakebed, writing on smooth surfaces too small to decipher. He wants to see it for real.

 

 _Though I wouldn't want to forget,_ he thinks silently.

 

It is by no means a distasteful tradition, but rather than forgetting, Woojin wishes to remember.

 

\---------

 

"Isn't it sad," he thinks aloud one day, "that memories are so disposable? Isn't the value in them in that they provide us with wisdom?"

 

His lecturer turns bespectacled eyes to him, hand braced beneath a thick textbook as he stops mid pace.

"Sad is a strange word to use, Mr Park," the balding man muses after a beat, using his free hand to nudge round, red-rimmed glasses up his nose as he peers at Woojin. The boy rather dislikes the habit; it had always made him feel uncomfortably scrutinised, not unlike a mouse under the inspection of a particularly invested warlock. "Perhaps _messy,_ but by no means _sad."_

"And although you do raise an arguable point," the man concedes, flipping through the worn textbook in his grasp, "what you must understand, first and foremost, is that the lake of memories is a form of healing." He pauses, fingers running down the yellowing parchment of his age-old copy, before he recites off the book.  "Spiritual scars are oftentimes more severe, and more long lasting, than physical ones." His voice echoes off the walls of the silent lecture hall as he reads. "The lake of memories provides those who walk the earth with a means to heal these spiritual wounds, to relinquish torment from our souls and to enable us, as fragile beings, to function properly and efficiently again."

 

"Physical and spiritual healing," he explains patiently, and Woojin nods shallowly, if only to placate the man's inquisitive glance. "Two halves of a whole."

 

The boy two seats to his right speaks up. "I reckon it's not something to ponder too much on," he reveals, and Woojin blinks as he hears murmurs of assent accompany his classmate's words. He simply cannot fathom the notion. _How could one throw away a memory without as much as a second thought?_  The light haired boy leans back in his seat to share a friendly smile with him. "We all have some memories that we'd be better off without."

 

Pursing his lips, Woojin shrugs, though his heart does not sit right in his chest. "I will decide that when I have something to forget."

 

\---------

 

He is twenty when he hears through the grapevine that memories can be retrieved from the lake.

 

\--------

 

 

Woojin wanders the forest, dense but not overly so, springtime fulfilling its promises of endless greenery and a myriad of colours bursting from flowering stems. He has no clue of which direction to take, though even with that knowledge he remains strangely calm, the sight of foliage all around him a new, fascinating sight. As he walks, the silence is punctuated by the shrill chirps of birds and the crisp crunch of dead leaves under his shoes. 

 

He looks up to the canopy of branches barricading the sky, to rays of golden sunlight bursting through the leaves and racing for the forest floor, when he missteps and trips over a tree root, pummelling face first into the grass with a yell. The grass is soft, and he thankfully doesn't injure himself, though a great mound of dirt enters his mouth upon contact with the rich earth.

Spitting the green blades out of his mouth, he sits up, and his eyes widen.

 

The forest opens seamlessly into a clearing he hadn't noticed earlier, dipping into a valley composed entirely of pebbles. The lake of memories sits in the center of it all, a vast body of crystal clear water stretching for yards, silent in its movements as the air has become. A thin mist hangs above it like a cloak of clouds, sunlight shining upon it but not quite reaching through it to the perfectly still water underneath. 

 

The boy makes his way to the edge of the riverbank, careful not to trip over any of the larger pebbles. It is eerily similar to how he had pictured it in his thoughts. The shade provided by the mist barely obscures the writing on the hundreds of thousands of submerged stones, rendering them unreadable. Feeling overwhelmed, Woojin stands still at the edge of the water, looking out into the lake without the faintest idea of how to start searching.

 

 

"Do you not have something to write with?"

 

Startled, Woojin turns in surprise, and finds himself face to face with another boy. Letting out a yelp, he stumbles backwards, though he is caught by the other before he touches the water, cool hands steadying him before letting go. Heart still pounding, Woojin takes in the other. The one who'd startled him is a much younger boy, frighteningly pale skin striking against jet black hair and equally dark doe eyes. He dons a long, blue autumn cloak in the middle of spring, which is strange, though he also possesses an aura about him, a strange aura that Woojin learnt suggested that the boy may be of a different folk. The older chooses not to comment.

 

"Be careful," the teenager scolds lightly, delicate lips pressing together. His voice is impossibly smooth; it reminds Woojin of the fine silks of noble robes. "I can't have you falling in there."

 

 

Woojin bites his lip, eyebrows furrowing hesitantly. "You're not from the village," he blurts. His village is a small one, and he is acquainted with all at the academy, even if simply in passing. He is certain that he had never seen this boy before.

 

The boy regards him, face serene. "I am a spirit of the lake," he agrees. He gestures to the water, hand stirring the mist in the air. White tendrils swirl lazily in response, a silent beckon. "I guide all folk who wish to come here, and I watch over the ones who dabble with memories."

 

Woojin remembers tripping over a tree root upon entrance. "Guide?" he asks.

 

The spirit nods, lips stretching into the faintest of smiles, as if he is in on the joke. He looks out into the lake, and Woojin sees the mist reflected in his eyes.  "The lake of memories only appears to those who seek it," he replies fondly. "Those who wish to be rid of a memory write it on one of the many pebbles, throw it in and forget. Those who wish to be wise would search for stones to read, but the memory is then theirs to keep."

He then turns to Woojin, cloak billowing in his wake. "So tell me," he asks, gesturing to the older with an ease of formality beyond his years. "Which may you be?"

 

 

Woojin licks his dry lips.

"I'm looking for a memory," he reveals, and he watches as the spirit's eyebrows lift in the slightest of surprises, his mouth parting in a small o. Retrievers must not be very common. "A memory of my birth father. My mother left it here, years ago."

 

"A searcher, then," the boy says, and his smile is soft and sad, like he had seen this countless times before. Perhaps he had. Woojin knows that spirits don't age - with something akin to a jolt, he wonders just how long this boy had been bound to serve this lake. 

 

The pale boy shakes his head gently. "One cannot choose which memories to retrieve," he tells him. His dark eyes search Woojin's face. "Even I am not privy to the secrets of the stones, though I bear witness to the great grief and sorrow of those who come to give them away," his face turns pained at the memory, and it is an expression that does not belong on such an innocent face. "And the burdens of the ones who choose to shoulder them."

 

Woojin stays silent. He is well aware that there must lie none but painful memories within the deceiving tranquility of the lake. He was well aware from the beginning, yet he sits down, wondering just how many pebbles he would have to read before finding his mother's. How many stories, how many lifetimes, how many timelines of anguish and pain. The spirit sits next to him on the riverbank, and Woojin wonders.

 

"There is a chance that the memory you seek is no longer here," the smooth voice floats into the air. Woojin turns, and the younger boy is looking up at him. He is not very much smaller, perhaps the same height Woojin himself had been in his mid teens, though it is more prominent with the way the other holds himself, regal yet delicate as the gossamer of fairy wings. Sitting next to him right then, he looks like he might dissolve into the very mist that clings to the air. "Though you may still search, if you so wish." 

He brings his knees to his chest, chin balanced upon them. His sky blue cloak spills about him, pooling about his petite form. "You must be careful," he confides, "for the burdens of these memories are heavy ones to bear."

 

 

Woojin ends up leaving empty handed that day.

 

 -------

 

"What memories do people leave here?"

 

The other shrugs. The mist is even thinner today, barely there, and the sunlight shimmers upon the surface of the lake. Under the sun, the boy's pale skin is flushed a pale pink, blush deepening at the tips of his ears. Woojin finds it fascinating. "Many things," the lake spirit says. "Everything. The pain of a childhood scrape to the turning of a vampire. Witnessing something they shouldn't have, the grief of losing a loved one, a harrowing experience they'd rather forget." He turns to him. "The possibilities are endless." 

 

Woojin picks up a blank pebble, turning it over in his hand. Its surface is impossibly smooth. He imagines entrusting it with a part of him, throwing that part as far as it could go into the lake, where it would sink next to parts of other people, others who had parts of them wrenched from their souls, from their very beings. It makes him shudder. "I wouldn't want to forget," he says.

 

And the spirit simply smiles, a sad, sad smile, and woojin feels his heart break.

 

 

\--------

 

"There was a boy who used to come here often," he reveals one day, after they watch a man throw a memory into the lake. Woojin had been able to see for himself how the man's shoulders had relaxed, how he had sighed in contentment as he turned to leave. "Almost every day, I think. Reading stones." The younger boy smiles at the memory. There is something about his smiles, Woojin thinks, something in the way that they never quite reach his eyes, something in the melancholic way he tilts his head to the sky, that has him wondering. Wondering is something that Woojin seems to do quite often now, whilst in the period of limbo leading up to retrieving his first memory. He hums, and the other takes it as a sign to continue.

 

"He was young and fearless," the spirit nods. "And strange - while others came to be rid of scars, he didn't want to die without them. Fancied himself a warrior, I reckon."

 

Woojin chuckles, shaking his head in incredulity. "He sounds like an interesting guy."

 

"Oh, but he _was_ ," the spirit says all in a rush, as if he couldn't get the words out fast enough. He extends his hand to the lake, stretching his fingers out and clenching them into a fist, as if grasping a stone. "Read his future in the stones, he did. It's funny what one can find in them."

 

 

"And what did he find?"

 

The spirit lowers his fist, eyes following it as he brings it to his lap. He mimics reading a stone. "I don't know," he says. He places the imaginary stone next to him. "He passed away."

 

They are both silent for a while.

 

"Maybe he saw that," Woojin says. "Maybe he knew that he didn't have time, and that's why he was so desperate for knowledge." 

 

The spirit hums. "Perhaps you're right." This time, he mimics writing on a stone, and instead of throwing it as far as he can, he places it just at the edge of the riverbed, where it would be if it was just barely fully submerged. Woojin smiles at that. 

 

 

"If he was looking for a memory," Woojin asks, "would he have read all the stones in the lake till he found it?"

 

The other pauses, thinking. And then, for the first time since they met, Woojin sees the spirit laugh, loud and breathless, and he doesn't think he's ever seen anything more breathtaking. "I don't have the slightest doubt about that."

 

\--------

 

"Do you have a name?"

 

It was strange, that they had become something of acquaintances, even friends, though they still had not exchanged names. Though the other boy does not seem to think so, even looking surprised by the question. "Spirits are called by many names," he muses. "Though most simply call me the spirit of the lake of memories, or the lake spirit."

 

Woojin grimaces. "Isn't there anything easier?" He asks. "Anything that's less of a mouthful."

 

The lake spirit's fond laughter tinkles into the misty air. "In that case," his voice hums, "I suppose you may call me Ahn."

 

"Ahn?" It's nice and simple. Woojin thinks he likes it. "I'm Woojin."

 

Ahn smiles. "It's very nice to meet you, Woojin."

 

 

\--------

 

 

 

Woojin is twenty one when he finally gathers the courage to retrieve a memory.

 

"I think I will take a stone today."

 

"Will you?" Ahn asks in surprise. His expression quickly relaxes into that of an encouraging smile, as he gestures to the lake. It is early winter, and Ahn's cloak looks more fitting for the weather than it was all spring and summer. "It is cold, but you can wade in to retrieve a memory if you so wish. The lake is vast, but not so deep."

 

Woojin cannot swim, but that is not the reason why he shakes his head, and Ahn watches, mystified, as he strides up right to the edge of the river, where they usually sit. 

 

Not pausing to think too much, he picks up the first pebble he sees. Just barely submerged, it is a glossy, flat slate, half the size of his palm and perfect for writing. He turns it over and begins to read.

 

A single word is scrawled in the familiar cursive of a teenager, looping and untidy. The penmanship is disastrous, though strangely familiar, and in the same shade of blue as his favourite quill from his teenage years at the academy.

With a startling jolt of realisation, Woojin recognises the writing as his own, albeit messier and wrought with force, from years ago. Impossible.

 

Inconceivable. _Preposterous_.

 

 

 

He reads the word over and over, disbelieving, even as the ink begins to age before his very eyes, feathery cracks between scribbles and black veins crawling up fading blue stems. He is numb with shock, even as the first tendrils of grief begin to invade his body. 

But more than the fact that he'd actually gone and done it, which was unthinkable in itself...  _why_?

 

And then inevitably, uncontrollably, the memories flood in, and Woojin starts to remember.

 

A boy from his village. A forgotten boy. An abnormal boy, they called him. A boy who was fearless, who would drag him to the lake almost every day to collect memories, who bore the weight of countless worlds upon his tiny shoulders.

A boy with the most beautiful, heartbreaking laugh, a boy with skin as pale as porcelain, a boy who only ever wore his favourite blue cloak. 

A boy who was, all this life, shunned for collecting stones, though never halting in his endeavour for knowledge. Who, in one of his countless searches, had stumbled across the discarded memories of an oracle, an oracle who foresaw death as clearly as he saw sunlight. Who panicked, who sped up his search, because little beknownst to his village, he was a searcher, not a collector. He had been a searcher since the day he learned of the memory his best friend so desperately sought, searching with a vigour scary even to himself.

A boy who never gave up until the end.

 

Woojin also remembers, clear as day, the dawn he passed, the procession to the lake and the mandatory ritual that he was forced to partake in. He remembers placing his stone right at the edge of the lake, within reach. He remembers the memories fading, remembers panicking as they washed away with the wind and water. Woojin remembers.

 

Woojin looks up wildly, tears in his eyes, heart ragged in his chest and words caught in his throat. Ahn is gone.

The abandoned rock drops at his feet, the name _Hyungseob_ dissolving completely as Woojin remembers _._

   

**Author's Note:**

> This is so so strange I've never written anything except happy endings before this feels SOO STRANGE
> 
> Also woojin this is what you get for sinking your own ship istg CAN YOU NOT i'm already so emotional over here without you being so unhelpful gah
> 
> Anyways, I hope you liked this and please support jinseob! <33 (it's not a request it's actually an order)


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